


All the Wisdom of Your Ways

by sinverguenza



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Het
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-15
Updated: 2015-10-15
Packaged: 2018-04-26 11:45:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5003524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinverguenza/pseuds/sinverguenza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermione Granger walks the grounds of Hogwarts for many reasons.  She does not always walk alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All the Wisdom of Your Ways

Harry has always had a penchant for wandering the halls of Hogwarts at night, and I understand that. I truly do. Certainly, this is a time in our lives where stress keeps us all awake at nights, bleary-eyed and burning under our sheets. Ron usually stays in his bed in order to deal with it, and as I’ve said before Harry paces the halls. But I’ve always preferred fresh air to aid clear thinking. 

I‘ve never been caught…and I suppose that might surprise you. I’ve never been athletic but I pride myself on being nimble. Think. I prefer to be unencumbered by the boys when it comes to rule breaking. It’s just easier. They don’t know that I take my restless walks out of doors, and they don’t need to.

\-----

“Granger!” His voice had startled me terribly, and I jumped. I turned toward him, my fingers gripping my wand in the pocket of my cloak. 

I relaxed when I saw him, Professor Snape. His skin was pale in the moonlight, sallow and soft. He was frowning at me. I remember thinking that I couldn’t imagine that he was just under 40 or so. He looked much older.

“What in God’s name are you doing out at this hour?” He flicked his head toward the school, and I could see it looming over us, tall and gray against the night sky.

I shrugged – what could I say? Since knowing he was a member of the Order, Snape no longer frightened me, and I certainly wasn’t intimidated. But I still didn’t want to tell him my secrets – that I barely slept for worry about the future that was hurtling toward us. “I can’t sleep.”

He muttered in a low tone. “Do not think that I will treat you any differently simply because of the Order.”

I was vaguely insulted that he thought that I might. “Dock me, then, sir.” I said this and then left him there, scowling at me. Something I found later that he did quite often.

\-----

My potions essay came back with a decent mark. I was relieved, as his tests were always difficult. 

At the end of my parchment was an ugly note in bright red ink. _Granger, have you learned nothing at Hogwarts? Next time, remember to spell ‘Snufflifors’ correctly, and your paper might be marginally respected by someone that possesses a brain._

It was the longest note he’d ever written me. I wasn’t angry with him for it. For some reason, it felt like he was trying to be friendly, in his own way, and I smiled.

\-----

“Sleepless again?” The words were kind, but he said them with a sneer as to make them mocking.

“Yes.” I was perched on a large boulder, just off of the lake. I’d seen him in the woods from a distance almost every night this week since I’d received his chatty insults on my parchment, though we’d carefully avoided one another as we paced.

The sound of the water from the lake lapped at the shores. We sat in silence for ages. 

“It’s not safe here,” he said flatly. “There will not always be someone here to tend you.”

“I didn’t ask for your protection,” I said lightly.

He scoffed. This time it was his turn to leave me. I watched his thin legs climb the hill toward Hogwarts, his hair lank and dark in the moonlight above us.

\-----

Someone snuck into Hufflepuff’s common room and cut the chaises to pieces, ripped the pennants down and burned them on the floor. No one knew how they got in, and the paintings weren’t talking. I suspected it was nothing more than a prank, probably by Malfoy’s hand. Malfoy and his cronies were smirking in their pyjamas as the professors fretted about what to do.

So it was another night spent in the Great Hall under purple sleeping bags, for fear of the safety of the students. Harry and Ron treated it as an opportunity to slack off on their homework, but I was more annoyed that I wouldn’t be able to have my nightly stroll. It was the only thing that calmed me these days.

“Come on, then.” I was sitting morosely on my sleeping bag when I heard his voice, low and hateful as it always was. I looked up. Hannah Abbot was standing by Snape, looking uncomfortable. 

“Yes?” I asked

He grunted. “Make yourself useful, as the rest of the prefects have. Are you and Abbot capable of securing the front gate on your own?” 

The cold air that night slid over my face, but I hardly felt it.

\-----

“It’s so quiet here.” I spoke to him for the first time. I could hear him, standing a few meters behind me, and if he wasn’t going to speak, then I would. “I sometimes think that’s half the reason why I come here. For the quiet.”

“It is less quiet with you here,” he said sourly.

I gave him a long look before walking briskly back to Gryffindor Tower. He and I were beyond that now, and I didn't like the place from which his comment had come. 

Was this how it was always going to be? One of us stalking away from the other, angry and alone?

\-----

The woods surrounding Hogwarts are lovely even in the daytime, but even more so at night. They are dark and winding but they don’t frighten me. I swear that I’ve been hopelessly lost, so many times, only to find myself conveniently at a landmark that I recognize – the path to Hagrid’s home, the niffler cages. I will never be lost in these woods again.

\-----

“Idiots.” The sky was bright with Weasley Fireworks, which were being launched out of the Astronomy Tower. Gryffindor had beat Slytherin badly today in Quidditch. I wondered if he truly cared this much about a game.

“Why shouldn’t they enjoy it?” I turned to ask him this, and was surprised to see him standing at my side, closer than we had ever stood before. “Why shouldn’t they have some happy times here? The war will end eventually, you know.”

“I assure you that I would posses the same sentiment toward the Weasley twins, war or not.” 

I was quiet for a moment, and then I spoke softly. “They’re really very…nice. They’ve been kind to me.”

“I do not have the privilege of their kindness.”

I almost smiled at his petulant tone.

\-----

I have always prided myself on my powers of observation, which is probably why I find people of habit fascinating. For instance, a professor who has never once lingered by my desk during class. If this professor were to suddenly make a habit of slowing as he walked past me, would that not cause me to notice? Small moments that I could almost convince myself meant nothing.

\-----

“Harry showed it to me.” I set the small, leather-bound book onto my knees. I was sitting on the boulder again. He was standing next to me – he never sat. 

Snape gave me another dirty look and I saw his profile in the moonlight. He would have been almost nice-looking if he didn’t frown so.

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Everyone back then had bad hair.” I looked again at the photo of the Marauder’s graduating class. James, Peter, Sirius, and Remus looking healthy and smiling. Snape, glowering from the corner, his hair long and stringy-looking. 

“Oh? Back then?” His lips twisted. He had made a joke.

\-----

I didn’t mean for him to find me. Not in this state, not tonight. I pressed my back against a tall tree in the woods and steeled myself when I saw him approach me.

I could tell that he didn’t quite know how to handle a weeping female. He was quiet and I could _feel_ that he was stunned and unsure of himself.

“S-sorry.” I clenched my teeth together to keep them from chattering. There was a thin veneer of snow on the ground, and I clutched my cloak around me. I heard him step closer. I could barely tell him from the darkness around us, but I felt the warmth from his body, so I knew he was close.

“My…parents. They got a letter today. It said-“ I bit my lips together, until I felt it pass. “It said that their Mudblood daughter had better keep her fat mouth shut.” I cried, silently, into the neck of my robe. It felt like ages passed by. 

When I was back in control of myself, I looked up at him. I could see his pale face in the shadows. “I’m afraid for them. I mean, I don’t care about me. I mean, I’m scared, but…” I was prattling on. 

He nodded slightly, but again he was silent. 

“I don’t want them dragged into this, is what I mean.” I sniffed loudly. Minutes passed. And then I felt an irrational sort of anger burst through me. “ _Say_ something, damn you! I’m always babbling away and you’re quiet and I _hate_ it!” I pushed his arm then, a sort of half-punch. He caught my wrist and squeezed it. I thought he was intending to punish me, but no. I was wrong. I was _so_ wrong. He hauled me away from the tree until I found myself pressed against him.

I’d been thinking about what this would feel like for quite some time. In my mind, I’d always found it, well, odd. Uncomfortable. I’d giggled irrationally at the entire thought once in my bed.

But there was nothing humorous about this. He held me tightly and he bent his forehead. He is a very tall man and I am rather short, but somehow we fit – his head tipped onto mine, so much so that I could see the outline of every hair against the moonlit sky above us. 

I pinched my fingers into his cloak. He smelled like dust and smoke and I breathed deeply. And then I laid my cheek against his chest, like it was the most normal, expected thing in the world for me to do.

He still hadn’t spoken, and I realised then that he didn’t need to. The hammering in his chest spoke more than his words ever could.

\-----

On a fundamental level, I know that this is a mistake, not just for him. I am a young woman with a bright future. He’s my professor. I am not yet of legal age. He is old and angry and ugly. But, quite honestly, have you ever pictured me with a boy my age? I’ve never pictured myself with anyone at all, frankly, until now. That is enough of an answer for me.

This sounds illogical, I know, and I am a logical person but there remains so much about him and I that I cannot explain. I don’t know how he takes his tea. I don’t know what his middle name is. I have never woken next to him in his bed, but I have all the time in the world to learn all of that, and I will. We are going to live. We are going to live through this because I must learn more about him. I ache for the secrets that he possesses, and I want him to tell me all of them. 

I don’t know how this started, but it certainly didn’t start the night I cried in his arms and he kissed me. It didn’t start in the dark woods outside of Hogwarts either. It started so long ago that I cannot remember the moment, precisely. Instead, I am filled with other memories, better memories, that take precedence.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this many years ago (whenever Heroes was popular), and I suppose I misplaced it or forgot about it or something. Anyway. Here it is now. It's nice when these lost stories find a home.


End file.
